United We Stand
by The Creepy-Psycho-Loner
Summary: When Leonardo and Raphael are unconscious from an unknown poison, the Shredder offers them the antidote. Of course, there is a price: Kill Michelangelo, allow their unconscious brothers to die agonizingly, or watch as the world crumbles before their very eyes. All the while, they have but 48 hours to decide. [2003] Don-centric
1. Chapter 1

**United We Stand** By The Creepy-Psycho-Loner.

**Disclaimer:** All characters, Places, etcetera are not owned by me. I simply do the plot.

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**_"Welcome to my life. You see that it's not easy, but I'm doing alright." _-Sunrise Avenue**

_Chapter 1:_

**_ Cognitively Unable_**

Perhaps it was some twisted up destiny, or a very creepy coincidence that we always ended up in the eye of some weird and evil plot. One minute we could be out on a usual patrol when we were suddenly sent through some trans-dimensional portal.

Oddities like that happened basically on a daily basis. It'd be a genuine shock if we didn't expect those things to happen.

Like the time when... when we...

It started when we were witnessing some sort of transaction. We ended up at an old abandoned dock after seeing the Shredder and what's left of Baxter Stockman go inside some ship sitting on water.

There were lots foot ninjas carrying loads of boxes which contained unknowns. This was, undoubtedly, some plan created by The Shredder.

Leo turned around to face us, ready to give directions and orders.

"Donnie, I want you and Mikey to distract the foot while Raph and I sneak in."

He peered his head around one of the crates, waiting for the perfect moment for us to call to action. Soon enough, he gave us the signal to go.

Mikey followed closely behind me as we snuck around the side of the dock. One Foot Ninjas' back was turned right in front of me before I grabbed him and knocked him out. It wasn't long until the other clan members noticed and called for extra backup. In my peripherals, I saw Leo and Raph go inside the overly large ship.

The foot surrounded us but I didn't feel panicked at all.

So, there we were frozen in place, ready to charge on command. Then, without any prior warning, they all came charging at once. I firmly grasped my Bo staff while I saw Mikey twirling his oh-so-beloved nunchucks. To build momentum and cause some serious damage. Physics, I told Mikey various times but... he never listened.

Anyways, the first hit was by me that sent two gone in an instant. Mikey hit two more in the head; and so that's practically how the fight went on (they got lucky on Mikey and I a few times though).

It seemed as if the Shredder had an infinite amount of those creeps. If I took some down, double the amount came back. They clearly didn't know when to quit. Unbeknownst to us, during that whole battle, the leader kept giving out order, commands, and tactics. I didn't notice until we started to grow tired.

"Mikey, we have to take down the leader!"

Mikey nodded back to me in confirmation and we both headed for the foot ninja.

"Michelangelo heads toward the commanding officer. Operation Take down Foot Guy is a go! He quickly maneuvers through these follower foots... or is it feet?"

I couldn't resist laughing. "What're you talking about, you goof?" I chuckled.

We easily took down the Foot Ninja. The rest started to retreat and I groaned in happiness. I ran towards the ship.

It was about time to stop Shredder from murdering Leo and Raph and taking over the universe in all his psychopathic glory.

We didn't see any more foot ninja, to my greatest relief, but we did see our aforementioned brothers sprawled; unconscious.

I rushed over to them as did Mikey. Where was that shredder anyways? He didn't seem to be in the ship with us. Could he have ran away? Of course he did. Shredder always had something up his mechanical arm sleeves.

But whatever it was that the Shredder was intriguing, it had to wait because at that moment we needed to see if big brothers are okay.

I bend down and place two fingers to their neck.

"What're you doing?" Mikey blurted out; panicky and on the brink of hyperventilating I noted.

I looked up at him briefly before I stood.

"I was checking their vitals. You know, to see if they were alive," I answers sarcastically. Honestly, I hadn't meant to sound so cavalier.

I reached down and carried Leo, who surprisingly weighed somewhat light. I flung him over my shoulder difficultly though. Mikey decided to carry Raph bridal style. We quickly made our way off the ship and headed back towards the Lair. We kept to the shadows, since there were a few New Yorkers out (The city that NEVER sleeps)

We saw a few thugs- that didn't see us- robbing an innocent pedestrian but we really didn't have time for... trivial things. I don't mean that I didn't care what they were doing, it was just that we were all that we had. Sure, humans mourn and fall into illnesses like depression but there are not the only ones of their kind. I remember Leo once said,

_"In this life, we are all that we have. We live our life everyday but no one knows how much time we have left or when one of us will be gone..."_

I, being the logic lover, knows that eventually we all would die. Science, religion, and nature tells us this- guarantees it. Even so, the thought of one of them dying disturbs me greatly. It makes me see that we are not immortal.

Seeing Raph and Leo like that scared me. Sometimes I used to overreact, especially in those kinds of situations (which happened more often than not).

Without them, what would we do? Who would guide us? Master Splinter died several years earlier from his old age. Would Mikey and I drift apart? Would I have to fend for myself, scrounging up all the food I can find, going insane from the lack of companionship? Perhaps I would expire from the lack of nutrition. Or maybe I would commit taboos- like homicide or suicide.

Maybe I would go delusional and walk amongst the human race, get caught, and undergo conscious dissection by the FBI. In consideration, that would be very and highly unlikely. My imagination got the better of me; I couldn't control and sometimes, on its mercilessly horrid rampage, it filled my brain with images that were (and still are) extremely improbable...

Yet somehow I was persuaded into believing the unreal.

We made it back to Lair and I ordered Mikey to sit on the sofa after we put them down in our makeshift infirmary. He looked like he was going to faint and I knew he needed to rest. I told him to calm down. Told him that everything would be okay.

It was easy to say, yet I couldn't quite convince myself.


	2. Chapter 2

**United We Stand** By The Creepy-Psycho-Loner.

**Disclaimer**_:_ All characters, Places, etcetera are not owned by me. I simply do the plot.

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**_"I was just guessing at numbers and figures, pulling the puzzles apart. Questions of science; science and progress do not speak as loud as my heart."_ -Coldplay**

_Chapter 2:_

**The Scientist**

I know a lot of things. I know the square root of 9,470,000 (with the numbers after the decimal and all) and of the intricacies of human and alien technologies. Yet when Leo and Raph still was unconscious, I still hadn't found out why. What unnerved me was the occasional moaning and groaning from both brothers. Like they were in pain or in some sort of discomfort. For five hours, I was left stumped. I tried to test blood samples from them but results came back illegible. Complex equations that I couldn't decipher, for all my worth.

Then, I thought about going back and checking for clues. I still had a solid three hours until daylight.

Leaving a note for Mikey, who had fallen asleep earlier, I left the lair. I took my Bo staff but I left my cell phone. I'm not sure why I would do something so careless. Even today I question what motivated me. It may have been the sleep deprivation. Even my logic was foolish. I thought: It's not like I could have called anyone (at least not big brothers) for backup and I didn't expect anything to happen.

...Of course, I didn't expect to find the Shredder there either. So I guess that I'd played some weird and messed up lottery. One that said: something may or may not go wrong. Donatello may or may not run into trouble. The Shredder may or may not be there waiting for you.

I whipped out my Bo staff, at lightning speed that I thought was physically impossible, at the sound of his voice. So worn, merciless, sour, and gruff that I had to wonder if it were real in the first place.

"Calm down turtle. I just come with the solution to your current situation."

From past and current experiences, I say, with scientific fact that one should never trust Shredder. It was like a universal rule: everyone knew and abided by it. Even his right-hand supporters knew it. His mother probably never even trusted him (of course that's assuming he had a mother). But curiosity won the battle in the end.

"What? Why would you think I'd trust you?" His logic really angers me still. It's always been like that, even when we first started to fight the Shredder.

"Because I hold in my hand," he held up a vial filled with clear liquid, "The antidote to your brother's poison."

My eyes, if it were possible, popped from their sockets. So Shredder _did_ poison them. But with what? And _why_?

I immediately thought of Stockman. He was a scientist and he was extremely intelligent. He had to have created it.

"What are the conditions?" I asked monotonously. I knew that with the Shredder, there'd be a catch. Shredder knew that I knew, so he laughed darkly, manically.

"Three choices. To get the antidote you must either kill the turtle Michelangelo, or watch the world tremble before my reign. If you chose to do neither, then you must live with the fact that you allowed your brothers to die."

Like hell if I would allow any of them. I was a scientist as well. I saw the color that the antidote was supposed to be. Perhaps, I thought, I could make the antidote myself. But Shredder got to me when he had said,

"And if you think you could make your own antidote, assuredly you will not. Stockman is a very _creative_ person."

Still, I can always try. My brothers always did call me persistent.

Shredder took a step back, his arms clasped behind his metallic back. "You have but two full days to decide, for that is the time the poison will conquest and ultimately murder the ill turtles." And as quickly as he appeared, he vanished.

I can read ten different alien languages and maybe even build a time-machine but physiology and mechanics was my forte and medicine was my sub-career. Assuredly I couldn't create an antidote. Not for a poison so complicated. Especially not in two days.

So what could I do? I had to think about the outcomes. I had two days to decide whether to:

**1)** Kill my baby brother who keeps the joy and stability within our hearts. The person who can drive our family to the brink of insanity just by his silence or absence.

**2)** Kill my older brothers who ensure our safety, who guides us and coaches us through thick and thin, or

**3)** kill dozen of innocent humans (adult, children, and babies) and allow the earth to plunge into a submissive state of depression, despair, and slavery.

As I made my way home, sullenly, with the**_ little_** piece of information I had learned, I was in constant debate. _Could I really tell Mikey?_ Asks one half of my brain. _Of course. He has as much to do with it as you, Donatello. He is, obviously, entitled to the truth._ Says the other. I did not want to tell Mikey the truth that many lives are on the line. I couldn't do that to him. I'd probably ruin him and all of his candid glory. I couldn't forgive myself either. For some reason, I wouldn't stop thinking that this is going to be the longest 48 hours of my 17 years of life.

I am a scientist. I study Deoxyribonucleic acid- the building blocks of life. The eccentric scientific blueprint that tells how each organism should be developing and functioning.

And sometimes, though, like science, the future can become exactly what we don't want it to be.


End file.
